The Man at the Fire
by scintillating stars
Summary: Massie thinks of a new way to get rid of the new girl at camp. Claire-centric. AU. Enjoy and review?


"Okay, girls, just take a seat around here," said the perky and blonde counselor of cabin fifteen, Olivia. "The bonfire will start in a bit, just chat among yourselves."

"Thanks, Liv." Massie smiled sweetly, _too_ sweetly, before turning to whisper to one of her friends, probably about Olivia's new hair extensions.

Claire silently took a seat on a log away from her cabin mates and started observing her surroundings. There was the growing orange flames in the bonfire pit, the loud and naïve junior campers on the opposite side of the fire, the more reserved and gossiping senior campers around her, and the frazzled counselors trying to keep everyone in order. Ignoring the chaotic sounds surrounding her, Claire listened more closely, and she could hear the sounds of various night animals scurrying around in the dark forests around them.

A kind voice broke through her concentration and Claire turned to the source of the interruption.

"Claire, dear. You look so lonely sitting here by yourself. Why don't you go talk to Massie?" Mrs. Pat, who had helped Claire with registration, said, "She's always friendly."

Friendly was not how she would describe Massie from what she'd seen so far, "But –" Claire started to protest, yet couldn't really think of a believable reason to why she wanted to be alone.

"Please, darling," Mrs. Pat said, sensing Claire's hesitation. "Tonight is a special night."

Hearing, but not understanding, the undertones in the woman's voice, Claire complied. She nervously walked over to Massie and her group of followers.

"Hey," She mumbled, "Mrs. Pat told me to sit with you guys."

"Hello, new girl," Massie replied with a smirk. "Of course she did. Tonight's a special night and she doesn't think anyone should be alone."

"What do you mean? She said that too," Claire asked curiously, wondering what could be so special about that night, other than the fact that it would be her first bonfire at Camp Greenlake.

A couple of the girls surrounding Massie and her giggled. "Well, Kuh-laire, of course you don't know, this is your first year."

Massie rolled her eyes, then shot her a smile, so Claire wasn't really sure if she was being mean or not. The other girls started dispersing to other groups of campers, probably not wanting to hear the story again.

"So you know how Mrs. Pat is the wife of the founder of the camp, right?" Claire nodded, eager to hear about what happened. "Well, technically, she's a widow now, but Mrs. Pat has always been the sentimental type, so she's still sort of in denial. Mr. Pat had slipped and fell off his ladder while he was repairing a leaky roof in the main room. He actually wasn't that severely injured, but the shock of falling somehow caused a heart attack and the paramedics weren't able to revive him. This happened 4 years ago, a week or so before most of our third years here. They started opening camp earlier and earlier though, so today is the anniversary of his death – that's why Mrs. Pat is a bit emotional today."

"Oh…" Claire said slowly, not really sure how to reply to a story like that.

She felt sort of like an intruder on such an important day in the camp's history. For the billionth time since she had arrived, she felt like she didn't belong.

"Yeah. Mr. Pat always loved the bonfires. He would always insist on being the person to start the fire and would constantly be adding wood to it even while he was talking to the campers. In fact, there have been rumors that he can still be seen occasionally, throwing branches into the camp bonfires. People have been saying that it's probably because he had put so much effort and love into this camp that he couldn't bear to leave it, so now he's somewhat haunting the grounds.

"Apparently, he loves Camp Greenlake so much that he's even selective of which campers attend. It's rumored that on the first anniversary of his death, while a potential camper and his family were touring the camp, Mr. Pat appeared from out of no where and walked up to them. 'I don't like the looks of this one' was all he said before he seemed to grab on to the kid and drag him away. The parents chased after, but Mr. Pat had disappeared along with their son, and little Josh Hotz was never seen again."

Claire was growing increasingly uneasy as Massie continued to talk about the ghost of Mr. Pat. "The camp has had no more new campers since. Until you, of course." Massie gave her a knowing smile. "Don't worry too much though. You seem to be a good addition to the camp."

"So far, at least," Massie muttered under her breath. Claire pretended not to hear her.

"You might see him at the bonfire pit tonight, tending to the fire, but whatever you do, _do not look him in the eye_. Looking Mr. Pat in the eye was already practically fatal when he was alive, doing it when he's dead would be a huge mistake."

Before Massie could tell her any more about the rumors surround Mr. Pat's death, Kemp, the head counselor, had whistled to catch the attention of everyone. He began to talk, but Claire had tuned out after the first sentence. She was busy absorbing and processing everything that Massie had just told her.

_Could it be true_?

Claire looked down at her scuffed up Keds and the little pebbles fly up into the cold night air as she kicked at them. The story ran through her head over and over again as her mind tried to decide if the rumors could possibly be legit.

Eventually, Claire's neck began to feel uncomfortable from looking down for so long, so she refocused her attention directly in front of her. When she moved her vision upwards though, the first thing she saw was a pair of eyes staring straight at her.

Startled, she took a closer look at who it was. It seemed to be an elderly man wearing a big cowboy hat on his head and looked pretty fit for his age. He was holding a medium-sized log in his hands like he was about to throw it into the fire. _Mr. Pat_. Part of Claire's mind, the logical side, shouted at her to look away _fast_, but the side of her brain that usually won, the curious side, bided her to continue observing the figure.

He didn't seem much like a ghost to her, but what did she know? She hadn't ever seen a ghost before. With the smoke from the fire billowing around his feet though, it did look like he was somehow floating above the ground. Then, as she watched, the man began moving towards her.

At first Claire wasn't worried, thinking that the probability that he was heading for her personally was not that high, but he got closer and closer until he was only a couple rows away. She realized then that he really was heading for her, and as bits and pieces of Massie's story ran through her mind, she became more and more horrified at her predicament.

Her previously frozen and numb legs seemed to suddenly regain feeling, so she got up and started blindly running through the darkness. Claire really didn't care where her legs were taking her, as long as it was away from Mr. Pat and Massie and this creepy place they call a camp.

"Where's she going?" asked the sturdy man who had been heading toward where cabin fifteen was sitting. "Why did she just up and run?"

"That was Claire, the newest member of our cabin," replied Olivia, who had made her way back to her campers after she had seen the blur of motion that was Claire. "She seemed sort of aloof and apprehensive throughout Kemp's speech and just took off when you started heading over here."

"Oh, well, I just wanted to welcome her to the camp. We always appreciate newcomers, especially since Cassie died last summer." Mr. Pat's eyes started tearing up as he thought of the camp's old cocker spaniel.

"I think maybe she wasn't feeling well," said Massie, who had been sitting there calmly with a smug smirk until now. "She was complaining about an uneasy stomach earlier. Perhaps she went to the nurse's office for some medicine. You know not everyone is accustomed to Camp Greenlake's diet." She chuckled good-naturedly.

_No one would invade her territory if she had anything to say about it._

**a/n: yay another horrible semi-scary oneshot! also written during summer for my writing class then converted to fit the clique (: in case this was confusing, massie made up the entire ghost story to scare away claire -insert evil laugh here- okay i'm done posting old stories, i think. next story up will be newly written and fresh off of ... well not the press, so my brain? now i'm just rambling. happy holidays and reviews make my day! :D**


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